Landscapes: Volume Two from Dustin Farrell on Vimeo.

This game is going to be epic!

Batman: Arkham City is the sequel to one of the greatest video games ever made Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Arkham Asylum set the bar extremely high and provided an extremely rich and rewarding experience, Arkham City somehow manages to take that to yet another level and provides a fantastic 'open world' style experience that is so good, that if there was no Batman logo on the box, the game would still stand as an amazing piece of work.

So why does it work so well? First, as a sequel it doesn't do the usual cheap trick of making you go back to basics and strip you of all the cool weapons that you have. Nope, in Batman: Arkham City once you suit up, you have all the cool gadgets that you had before and you start off as a full on bad ass (as Batman is). :-)

Sure there are plenty more gadgets and combat moves to unlock, but at the start, you have all you need to feel like Batman and start kicking ass.

The game has a fantastic story and involves a lot of the villains that Batman has encountered over the years. They wisely kept to their own version of Batman that doesn't have anything to do with the various Movies, Comics and TV shows. Voice acting is superb all round.

Not only is there a main story to follow, but there is a lot of well fleshed out side stories to investigate as well. And to top this all off there are a lot of little Riddler puzzles to solve all over the map, so there is always something interesting to do even as you move from point A to B across the map.

Overall:
A great game that really sets the bar for other games to follow. Gameplay, Audio and Visual are all top notch and it is a hard game to put down.

A dark survival horror game, Metro 2033 is a fantastic example of great story telling in a game. The story/game takes place in the future - 2033 I guess :-) and a nuclear war has forced everyone underground into the metro/subway system. Ammuntion is now rare and is used as currency. People rely on home made weapons and ammunition, which isn't always accurate. There are various factions throughout the metro and to top it all off, great big monsters that appear to be out to eat everyone. :-)

Developed by a Russian developer, based on a Russian book, the game is set in Russia ;-) and though the game was in english, everyone had a Russian accent, which I think was a great idea and really helped immerse me in the story. The game is told via the main character relating these events many years later. You play as the main character in the first person perspective as you try to figure out all the weird goings on and to save your people.

Metro 2033 is a great survival/horror game. Sure there are lots of enemies out to get you, though you have to also survive the environment and your ammo limitations. Do you use real ammunition and save yourself or do you use the homemade and hope it is effective in time?

When you go to the surface you need to put on a gas mask, this restricts your view and the sound of breathing through the mask is a great touch. The thing is, you can run out of air filters for your mask and it can also be broken. There is this constant pressure/fear driving you on before you run out of air or break your mask. So it is not just a matter of running around, you have to be conscious of just how many air filters you have and make sure your mask doesn't get broken. You feel so exposed on the surface that you can't wait to get back underground again, just as you would expect to feel in that situation.

There are great touches throughout the game that help to really immerse you into the story. Audio is top notch and instead of pressing a button to see a map or how much air you have left. You look at your watch, or actually pull out a clipboard to look at your map.

The game has moral choices throughout that are subtle and will affect the ending to the point that you can't get a certain ending if you don't make certain types of choices.

Overall:
Amazing game. The atmosphere and world they created is some of the best work ever in a game. Tons of action and suspense all nicely balance. I was totally immersed and on edge (in a good way) the entire time. There are countless little touches throught that really make this game shine through.

Enslaved for the Xbox 360 (from the creators of Heavenly Sword) is based on a ancient Chinese tale that you might better remember as a show called Monkey. Enslaved goes back to the source material, though you will recognise the names of the characters (being exactly the same).

The basic premise is that it is 150 years in the future and machines are rounding up people everywhere. You play as tough as nails Monkey who has escaped and been 'enslaved' by a young girl called Trip. The catch is that if she dies, you die, so you have to keep her out of harms way as you journey back to her home, which funnily enough has you going ... West. :-)

So the Enslaved is a platforming action game that has you climbing, jumping and running through big open levels that can be multiple stories high. The sense of scale is really well done. Graphics are solid and just about every level is outside so you see more green than you do 'standard dungeon brown'. Lots of ruined skyscrapers that are half covered in vines etc as nature takes back the land.

The jumping from platform to platform is perfect. You don't have to die 100 times to figure out the 'exact right angle' to jump at, you just have to figure out where to go and generally you have to do it quickly before the bit of building you are holding onto falls off. In practice this is 10,000 times better than the usual jump to your death every 10 seconds style of game *cough* Tomb Raider *cough*. Now there is a new sheriff in town and no more jumpy jumpy, die die for you.

Monkey is actually voiced by the guy who did Gollum and he and the other motion capture actors do a great job here of brining the story to life. The action as you go around bashing up mechs has a nice flow to it and you can take on a group of mechs and switch targets with ease. No frustrating issues anywhere to be found.

Overall:
Brilliant game that was a ton of fun to play. They got everything right. If you like platforming action games, then this one is a must play. :-)

Trailer:

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (aka Transformers 3D) is the third and final film in the new Transformers film trilogy.

Like the other 2 movies, this is a Michael Bay action flick with the biggest and best explosions. Story is so so, but everyone only turns up to watch Giant Robots kick the snot out of each other.

The great thing about having a end to a series is that you can wrap things up instead of leaving it 'open for a sequel'. I find myself disappointed when a movie leaves things open, as it feels like the film makers weren't brave enough to make any tough decisions about where the characters/story should go. This is not a problem that Transformers 3 has at it puts a final stamp on the end of the series, but it would still be possible to make all kinds of sequels/prequels etc as the Transformers universe is very rich and barely tapped at this point.

The move to 3D was good and they don't go overboard with the 3D effects. Though they do go overboard with the giant robot effects and this is great. :-)

Overall:

Awesome. Tons of robot action and a great end to a Trilogy.